Army Dreamers
by Alidiabin
Summary: Tag to 9x09. Quincy's death was not Ziva's first rodeo. Her and Gibbs talk about their times in the Army.


**Title: **Army Dreamers**  
>Fandom: <strong>NCIS**  
>Author: <strong>Alidiabin  
><strong>Beta<strong>: Anonymous033 (Soph, you are awesome). **  
>Words: <strong>1,284**  
>Disclaimer: <strong>I own nothing**  
>Warnings Spoilers: ** Spoilers up to 9x09.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Afghanistan was not Ziva's first rodeo. Why Quincy's death affected her so much?

"_Should have been a rock star."  
>But he didn't have the money for a guitar.<br>"What could he do?  
>Should have been a politician."<br>But he never had a proper education.  
>"What could he do?<br>Should have been a father."  
>But he never even made it to his twenties.<br>What a waste -  
>Army dreamers."<br>_**Army Dreamers by Kate Bush**

_**Army Dreamers**_

Gibbs knocked on the door of Ziva's apartment. The Flores' were determined to say _thank you _to he and Ziva by taking them out to dinner, even though they had both insisted such a thing was unnecessary. In the end, he and Ziva had found that they did not mind the free meal and had taken the Flores up on their offer.

Ziva answered the door dressed in a burnt orange shirt dress which suited her olive complexion. Gibbs expected her to put on the brown boots sitting by her door and for them to get on the road, but then he noticed her wet hair.

"I am sorry, I got up-tracked," Ziva said as she let Gibbs into her small but well-lit apartment. He did not have time to correct her English, this time it was a slang phrase she got wrong not an actual idiom, as she was already across her apartment. "There is tea in the teapot," she called as she walked towards her bedroom.

He heard the hairdryer in the other room as he surveyed Ziva's apartment**. **He considered making a cup of tea. He moved towards the kitchen counter finding a clean mug in the shelving unit he had built for her a couple of birthdays ago. As he was making the tea he noticed her open laptop.

Ziva's laptop was all in Hebrew. She had made the switch from Mac to PC years ago, after finding it hard to sync the work system with her computer at home; but she maintained her home computer in her native tongue. However, Gibbs found the old adage of a picture being worth a thousand words true when he saw the open email containing two pictures.

The first photo was a photo at least ten years old. It was a group of teenagers dressed in olive uniforms. _Her army__days, _he thought; a time in her life that never got more than a mention if it was brought up at all. He quickly found her youthful face, with a massive smile across it, next to another baby-faced youth pulling a peace sign with a rifle on his shoulder. _War and peace._Gibbs could not help but to chuckle at the irony.

The photo below was a contrast. It was that of gravestone with Hebrew on it. The gravestone was clean, but Gibbs could sense it was not brand new. Recent, but not new.

He now understood why Ziva had been so quiet on the plane home. Like him, she had been lost in thoughts and memories. Captain Quincy's death was not her first rodeo. Not the first time it had gone down like that. He imagined an olive-clad Ziva talking to another set of parents like Quincy's. Perhaps that was how she had lost the smile from the first photograph.

He did not recall the hairdryer turning off, or the door of Ziva's bedroom opening. He only seemed to register her presence when she spoke.

"You did not touch the tea," she uttered as she leant across the counter, closed the laptop, and brought it closer to her. He did not respond. "I did not know Hebrew was one of your languages."

"I saw the pictures," he replied. He hoped Ziva would not be too upset with him.

"I will tell you mine if you tell me yours," she said as she poured herself a cup of tea. He looked up at her, trying to play dumb. But Ziva would not have a moment of his act**.**"I know something was personal for you about this case."

"Her name was Joan Matteson," he said; he decided Ziva would understand. Ziva would understand more than anything. "She died in '77 in a helicopter crash."

"And?" she asked, holding her hands out for emphasis. She expected more. She deserved more. "You two were sleeping together?"

He coughed uncomfortably. He had never slept with Joan. He would have if she'd asked; he and Shannon had only been pen-pals then, though during the first liberty he got after Joan's death he had found Shannon and they had changed that.

"No," he answered, "we were friends. She found it hard and I caught her trying to beat my times on the course."

"It must have been hard for her, being one of the few women," she stated remembering her own time in the army.

"She was as good as the guys, in some cases better," he replied. For a brief moment he saw the comparisons between Ziva and Joan; both driven, both determined to make it in a man's world, and both damn good at what they did. Gibbs determined that Joan would have liked Ziva.

Ziva was silent. She seemed lost in her thoughts again. Her eyes were staring at the bulging shelves in her kitchen, but her mind was far away. In another place, another time.

"You said you'd tell me yours," he prompted. She nodded obediently.

"His name was Asher, Asher Shahar," she started.

_Ziva had not believed the army__could__be so__boring,__but here she was sitting with three other soldiers on one side of a__checkpoint. The road was empty. Cars were few and far between._

"_We could do something to pass the time," Asher uttered as he took a sip of water._

"_What do you have in mind?" Ziva asked with a raised eyebrow._

"_A game," Asher said._

"_A game?"_

"_Is that what straight people call sex," another__soldier__Ori called from inside the checkpoint__booth._

"_Stop composing love notes to your boyfriend and get out in the sun," an older__soldier__Amos called as he stamped out his cigarette._

"_Don't you know gay people are like__vampires?__We__melt in the sun," Ori called._

_They heard a car race down the road__towards__them._

"_Finally,__some__action!" Amos cried. Ziva rolled her eyes._

_But none of them expected the car to come__towards__them as it__did,__rushing__through the__checkpoint__and__not listening as it was told to halt. Bullets erupted from the car and the soldiers fired back just as they had been told to do._

_It was when the shower of bullets stopped that Ziva noticed Asher. She rushed to his side. She saw blood seeping from his chest__and__tried to cover it._

"_Zee…vah," he__said,__taking in gulps of air._

"_Yeah," she__answered, "stay with me Asher. Remember we're going to that concert when we're on leave. We're the only ones that__like__Hadag Nachash,"_

"_I like … it … if … you … do," he said. "Zee …__vah."_

"_Yes," Ziva__whispered__as she tried to stop the blood._

"_Tell … my …__parents-" Asher__stopped,__his breathing became shallow._

"_Tell them what," Ziva__urged,trying to ignore her own feelings and the tears that were coming, "that you want to try bacon?"_

"_Nnn," Asher__gasped. "lll…ove__'em."_

"_Tell them yourself," Ziva__replied,__but as she said that she felt the last little bit of breath seep from Asher's body._

"_Ziva," Amos__said,__helping her to stand up. Ziva bit her__lip,__desperately trying to stop the tears._

_A sudden downpour of rain came. Amos and Ori swore and__ran__for__cover,__but Ziva just stood there. The rain seeped through her uniform, it darkened the road and it let the tears in Ziva's eyes fall._

"Did you tell his parents?" Gibbs asked breaking her from her memories.

"Amos volunteered," Ziva responded, "I let him. I could not handle it. He visits the grave every year. He is a major in the IDF now."

"We need to tell the Flores we'll be late," Gibbs told her, "there is something we gotta do."

**A/N**: It's been a while, so reviews are very welcome. Also, I tried to research the Israeli army and got as far as Wikipedia because I'm lazy; if it's really wrong do tell me.


End file.
